Companies know the importance of advertising. Many people are attracted by a particular label or claims that a product is associated with a certain time in history or perceived social standing. This is especially true of alcohol where, aside from the taste, many people make their purchasing decisions based on a sense of prestige. Breweries and distilleries often try to given their brand a pretigious image and use that image in their advertising, including the producers of Templeton Rye Whiskey.

According to a recent class action lawsuit against the company, Templeton Rye allegedly violated consumer protection laws by allegedly misleading consumers with stories of the whiskey’s origins. Marketing material released by the company claims that its founders were inspired by the Prohibition-era recipe of Alphonse Kerkhoff, which was handed down through his family on a scrap of paper. The label on the whiskey bottle also bears an old black-and-white photo, which is reminiscent of America in the 1920s when Prohibition was in effect. The label matches the whiskey maker’s claims to a recipe that has been handed down through the generations, and reinforces the belief that the whiskey is made using a recipe that is almost 100 years old.

However, Vern Underwood, the company’s chairman, was recently interviewed by Register, at which point Underwood revealed that Kerkhoff’s original recipe does not meet current FDA regulations. Instead, the whiskey is allegedly made using a stock recipe in an Indiana distillery. The fact that a Prohibition-era recipe allegedly does not meet modern federal regulations should hardly come as a surprise, but it does change consumer perceptions of the whiskey. If the original assumption of age and prestige was a significant factor in consumers’ decisions to purchase the whiskey, then the advertising is attracting customers through allegedly false and deceptive means. Templeton denies this is the case.

The location of the distillery is another cause for alleged concern, according to the class action lawsuit. Although Templeton Rye is based in Iowa and its marketing materials include a T-shirt that reads, “Templeton Rye: Made in Iowa”, the whiskey is allegedly actually produced and bottled in Indiana. To remedy the misconceptions that result from this, the company has announced that it plans to being printing on its labels that the whiskey is distilled in Indiana. According to the class action lawsuit though, the alleged mislabeling of the whiskey was intended to deceive its drinkers into believing that they were getting a craft whiskey that was made in Iowa.

The lawsuit was filed in Cook County by a Chicago law firm on behalf of “all individuals in the United States who’ve purchased a bottle of Templeton Rye.” If the class is certified and enough class members decide to participate, Templeton Rye could end up paying a fortune to whiskey drinkers all over the country.

Although companies are allowed a certain amount of leniency when it comes to the material that they use to promote their products, consumer protection laws exist to prevent them from using blatantly false statements, or statements that could be used to deceive customers. Templeton Rye allegedly violated these laws, resulting in the class action lawsuit. Templeton denies that it did anything wrong or misled consumers and will fight the lawsuit.

Our Waukegan and Joliet consumer attorneys provide assistance in fair debt collection, consumer fraud and consumer rights cases including in Illinois and throughout the country. You can click here to see a description of the some of the many individual and class-action consumer cases our Chicago consumer lawyers have handled. A video of our lawsuit which helped ensure more fan friendly security at Wrigley Field can be found here. You can contact one of our Skokie consumer protection attorneys who can assist in consumer fraud, consumer rip-off, lemon law, unfair debt collection, predatory lending, wage claims, unpaid overtime and other consumer, or consumer class action cases by filling out the contact form at the side of this blog or by clicking here.